I don't recall why I know what I explained below.
One possibility is that I just "followed my nose", installed the software,
and noticed there were now two versions with different names. It seems to
me that's what happened under Windows, until (thank God!) I ditched that
beast a year ago.
But I could be misremembering how it worked, in that environment (hell).
On the Mac, it's automatically a bit clearer, since you complete the
install by moving the new version into the Applications directory and the
OS asks if you want to overwrite. If you're not sure, you rename the old
one and THEN move the new. So the OS itself warns me what I'm doing.
Bobby
On Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:38:54 -0500, Murray Eisenberg
<murray at math.umass.edu> wrote:
> But does it SAY that somewhere on the page where one downloads an
> installer, or on a printed piece of paper if one receives physical
> installation media, or in a readme file that accompanies the installer,
> or, ... ?
>
> Does it even say that when you run the installer? (After I uninstalled
> 7.0.0 and ran the installer for 7.0.1, I received no such notice even
> though I still had 5.2 and 6.0.3 installed.)
>
> Why the secrecy?
>
> Is one supposed to intuit the answer?
>
> Hence my complaint -- and it's a complaint, as I said, much more
> generally applicable than about Mathematica.
>
> DrMajorBob wrote:
>> I believe, with Mathematica, the procedure is to simply install the new
>> update. If you choose to give it the same name as the old (simply
>> Mathematica, for instance), it overwrites the old. If not, you now have
>> (at least) two versions. File associations should go to the new version,
>> but if they don't, just change them.
>>
>> I used to keep old versions, but I no longer do that.
>>
>> Bobby
>>
>> On Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:02:14 -0500, Murray Eisenberg
>> <murray at math.umass.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Is there some installation instructions I missed that tell you the
>>> 7.0.1
>>> installer will uninstall 7.0.0? If so, where?
>>>
>>> I didn't see such, so I did the same thing I always do when such a
>>> minor
>>> update arrives: first uninstall the old version and then install the
>>> new
>>> version. (With a major version change, of course, I leave the old
>>> version installed until I can migrate everything affected.)
>>>
>>> One of my biggest complaints about software in general is how seldom
>>> there is up-front information on how to handle an update/upgrade: you
>>> must uninstall the old version first; you may uninstall the old version
>>> first; you should NOT uninstall the old version first; the installer
>>> will automatically uninstall the old version first; the installer will
>>> not uninstall the old version first; the installer will give you the
>>> option of uninstalling the old version first.
>>>
>>> Considering how often many software products come out with updates, new
>>> releases, upgrades, etc., and how much effort is often devoted to
>>> pushing and selling such new versions, it remains amazing to me at how
>>> inattentive so many software publishers are at dealing with this
>>> so-obvious matter.
>>>
>>>
>>> Helen Read wrote:
>>> >
>>> > ... And the 7.0.1 installation is pretty easy if you already have
>>> > 7.0.0 installed. If you accept all the default options, it goes
>>> ahead
>>> > and uninstalls 7.0.0, sucks up your mathpass and init.m files, and
>>> > installs 7.0.1.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
--
DrMajorBob at bigfoot.com